


not the end

by 24bookworm68



Series: family matters [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aromantic Bucky, Becca's still awesome, Brainwashing, Bucky & Nat were cute as hell, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Gen, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Kinda, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Other, Period Typical Attitudes, Protective Bucky Barnes, and then Hydra happened, by which i mean blink-and-you'll miss it references to anti-semitism, i dunno, i mean i pretty heavily imply it but you can still interpret this as Stucky maybe, queerplatonic Stucky is what i wrote though, the violence isn't really that graphic it's a cautious warning, this is really weird compared to blood ties i'm so sorry, this is? really weird????, what else should i tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:15:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2406509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/24bookworm68/pseuds/24bookworm68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s 2015 and the base is burning down and Bucky does not have a next target so he just sits in front of it and waits for the people he knows are coming for him.</p><p>“Bucky?” Steve’s voice rings through the early morning air. </p><p>Bucky runs his fingers back through his too long hair and twists it in his fingers, just enough to hurt, just enough to ground him. “I’m not. I’m not back, not really. It’s not me in here- it is, I mean, but it’s not just me, and. I’m not who I was.” It takes him a few minutes to get through the speech and afterwards he just breathes and breathes and breathes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not the end

**Author's Note:**

> I DID NOT! EXPECT! THE AMOUNT OF ATTENTION BLOOD TIES GOT! i love all of you so much oh my gosh i hope you all have wonderful lives and like this mess of a fic i wrote in the middle of the night ahhhh ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh feedback is appreciated i squeal and do a little victory dance every time i get a comment please enjoy

Bucky Barnes never wanted to hurt anybody.

They leave that out of the history books, like so much else. They’ll tell you he was Steve Rogers’s best friend, but they won’t tell you they hated each other at first. They’ll tell you he was from Brooklyn, but they’ll let you assume that he was Irish Catholic because hey, so was his best friend and _oh, he doesn’t look Jewish_. They’ll tell you he was a great student and a ladies’ man and won’t tell you about him as a little kid and the words he couldn’t quite put together all the time and the thoughts that sometimes ran away with him. They’ll tell you he was the sniper for the Commandos and nobody’ll tell anyone about the way his eyes went all empty before a shot or how when he was a teenager and he’d get blood on his hands from a street fight he’d swallow down the bile rising in his throat and he wouldn’tcouldn’tdidn’t tell anybody about how his brain skipped and twisted.

It’s 1923, Bucky sees a fight in an alleyway.

Johnny Abbott is beating some little scrap of a blond kid up, like he does often. Bucky sees it all the time- Johnny’s one of those people who’s too big for his age when he’s young but averages out later, whose stress gathers in his fists. One thing has to be made clear- what Bucky does next isn’t about wanting to save that stubborn kid, it’s about the fact that he _hates_ Johnny Abbott.

See, Johnny Abbott’s father said some bad things about Bucky’s parents, for the usual reasons, and Johnny overheard, and thought it’d be hilarious if he repeated it to Bucky and Becca on the playground and they couldn’t start a fight because if they did they’d have to tell their father what was said and at six years old they both know already that one of the things that gets their dad riled up is, as he has described this sort of talk to their mother in that grumbly tone he gets when he doesn’t want the kids to hear, _“goyishe bastards talking shit”_ which he has _"had e-fucking-nough of, Win!”_ and Bucky and Becca don’t like how red they see his face go through the keyhole when he’s saying that, so after the first couple times they adopted a mutual agreement that what their father doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

But anyway. So, Bucky couldn’t start a fight with Johnny when he was actually angry at him, so he let it fester, and then three days later Johnny is beating a kid up in an alleyway and. Well. Saving some poor defenseless littler kid on the street is a good reason to kick somebody’s teeth in, right?

Right?

Steve Rogers, whose face is bleeding, says he didn’t need any help and Bucky should mind his own business, and Bucky calls him an ungrateful shrimp.

( _Which, coincidentally, is the only thing he’s said all week without stuttering, and the realization of that hits about halfway home and leaves him doing that thing that he does sometimes where he grabs his hair and twists a little because he’s stressing himself out._ [ _He will later perfect the subtlety of that maneuver so people who aren’t his family and Steve think he’s just carding his hand through his hair, even think it looks cool, but right then he’s six years old, give him a break._ ])

Winifred Barnes sighs loudly that way she does when her kids come home scraped up and messy but doesn’t tell her husband.

It’s 1937 and Bucky has just arranged for them put his father in the ground, didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to him- they were in a fire up at his aunt’s house and his mom is still hanging on, but not for much longer. He can’t hold her hand, and he keeps wanting to cry like he’s a little kid again and Becca is being everybody’s rock and he feels so bad about it because he’s the oldest and Becca is damaged and he shouldn’t be putting this on her.

He watches his mother dying, knows for certain that tomorrow she’ll be buried next to his father. He thinks about his best friend home with pneumonia urging him to leave.

He thinks about how when he was younger his father, who never spoke about his past- George was a veteran of the Great War, you see, who never wanted his children to know the horrors of gunfire and blood and bombs -would talk, sometimes, about the woman he met when he was young who looked like she carried starlight around in her eyes and her smile.

Bucky’s mother doesn’t look like that now. He doesn’t want to remember her like this.

He says the words he’s supposed to say for the dying and mentally prepares himself to say the ones he’s supposed to say for the dead and doesn’t cry and doesn’t cry and _absolutely doesn’t cry_.

He goes home to a cramped little apartment where no trace of the parents he’s lost over the last two days has ever been and sinks down just inside the door and somehow he missed Steve coming out of his room and sitting down beside him because there’s a cold hand on the back of his neck and a bony shoulder bumping into his and he wants to say something but he doesn’t know what it is. His words have left again.

Steve says, “End of the line, right?” and the wheeze at the back of his voice is louder than usual and this little _whine_ comes out of Bucky’s mouth instead of the _go back to bed you dumbass I’m fine_ that he means to say. “I’m gonna bring the cushions over.” Steve mumbles, and Bucky stumbles to his feet right along with his best friend and they crash onto the couch in a heap.

The next morning Bucky wakes up in the middle of saying, “Stevie if you don’t get your elbow out of my ribs I _swear_ ,” and for a second everything’s alright.

It’s 2015 and Bucky’s words stumble over each other when he says more than a few and they’re sometimes in different languages and he has to repeat himself and he breathes fast fast fast and Steve finds him in the burnt remains of the last Hydra base he took down, accepts his incoherent explanations with easy nods and smiles and it’s like the sun in the room with him and he _breaks_ -

It’s 1928 and Bucky has just left his cousin’s wedding and he’s giddy in that way only hyperactive eleven year olds after celebrations can be and his father says, only half-seriously, “If you end up with a girl half as beautiful as that one, son, count your blessings,” and Bucky nods and nods because he won’t figure out that he doesn’t want any girl at all until he’s older and his dad won’t ever find out.

It’s 1926 and Bucky says “You look like hell,” when other people would say “You’re my best friend.”

It’s 1931 and Bucky says “I know you did,” when he’s thinking “You scare the hell outta me.”

It’s 1935 and Bucky says “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal,” when what he means is “Let me take care of you.”

It’s 1944 and Bucky says “I’m following him,” and he watches Agent Carter suspiciously because Steve looks at her like she hangs the moon and Bucky has been protecting this boy for twenty-one years and just because he’s this big supersoldier weapon the government made for themselves doesn’t mean he isn’t Steve Rogers of the stupid backalley fights and no you _didn’t_ have him on the ropes, Steve, and no you _can’t_ get by on your own, and just because Bucky has nightmares about needles and the table and he gets so lost in his head sometimes that he doesn’t even feel like a real person anymore ( _he doesn’t know what the doctor did but he has an idea and he keeps half-expecting his face to peel off in his hands and he’s drinking whiskey like it’s water and it’s not doing a damn thing but Steve hasn’t noticed so he writes rambly letters to Becca and then tears them up because of course he can’t tell her what’s happening to him_ ) doesn’t mean he can’t protect this stupid kid, alright?

Alright?

And the thing is that he’s not in love with Steve, but he loves him. It’s just. It’s _please be safe_ and _please be happy_ and _please stay with me because I don’t know who I am if you aren’t there_ and it’s the closest Bucky can get to the sort of love that moves the stars because he knows _he would rearrange constellations for Steve’s stupid fucking smile_ , and if Agent Carter wouldn’t do the same she’s going to break his boy’s golden goddamn heart and he can’t have that.

It’s 1944 and Bucky says “I’m following him,” so he doesn’t have to say “You’re stuck with me.”

It’s 1944 and Steve yells “Grab my hand!” while his eyes say “Don’t leave, you promised.”

It’s 1931 and Bucky has just seen Steve get into another fight and when he dragged him home bloody and bruised his littlest sister looked at them like heroes and Bucky is afraid. Bucky is terrified. Becca hardly talks to anyone anymore and Steve is sick most of the time and when he’s not sick he’s getting himself beaten up and sometimes when he _is_ sick he’s getting himself beaten up and Bucky’s parents are tired and his twin is distant and his little sisters are confused and he’s so, so close to just losing it with how worried he is all the time.

He looks at Naomi and thinks that he doesn’t ever want her to be a hero.

That night he teaches her to throw a punch anyway and feels a little lighter when she’s good at it and Miriam edges in and watches and Becca pauses on her way past the doorway and cracks a smile at their antics and for just a second everything is alright.

It’s 1975 and the Soldier is training little assassins and the girl trying to take him down now manages to execute the maneuver perfectly and gives him a toothy smile and he laughs and says, “Good job, _ziskeit_ ,” and Natalia’s grin only widens and her red curls almost leave streaks in the air as she whirls around to face the other girls and gives a sweeping bow.

Something in the back of the Soldier’s mind itches and he frowns for a second but then the next girl is coming at him so he pushes it down.

When Hydra takes the Red Room over, he will take precious sweet little Natalia, who he wants more than anything to protect, and try to sneak her away.

It will be the first time the Soldier has failed a mission.

It’s 1992 and the Asset stands on a road ready to take down his next target. His handlers have not given him a mask to wear this time.

Unbeknownst to him, the driver of the car sees his face clearly when the headlights hit it.

Unbeknownst to him, Howard Stark shouts, “ _Barnes?!_ ” and swerves his car off the road to miss a ghost. The crash leaves the primary target and his wife dead. The Asset’s mission is completed. He returns to his handlers for debriefing.

It’s 1944 and Bucky wakes up on the table and sees Steve’s face and grins and for a second everything is alright.

And then it’s all wrong and he’s different and they both are but Bucky has been willing to follow Steve since they were little kids and he has been in if not the capital then the main seaport of hell for the past few weeks, fucking Nazi bastards with their experiments singled him out early on he was fucking _warned_ , he knew this could happen but it wasn’t going to happen to _him_ , of course it wasn’t. Bucky’s curse isn’t having bad things happen to him, it’s watching bad things happen to the people he loves.

Steve carries him out and Bucky thinks everything’s different right up until Steve punches the bully in the face and then tells Bucky to leave him behind like that’s an option. Stupid, stupid boy.

Bucky never wanted them to be heroes, but Steve always was, no matter what stood in the way. So he shouts, “Let’s hear it for Captain America!” and that smile almost makes it all okay.

Almost.

It’s 1945 and Bucky is being put into storage and he can’t save Steve. He can’t save Steve. When he finds out, their reprogramming is not firm enough to stop him from snapping and killing several unfortunate technicians.

It’s 2009 and the Asset shoots his target through Agent Natasha Romanoff and watches her go down and something in his brain tries to stop him from turning away. He walks back into base and asks for the name of the target’s redheaded escort and a tech makes an inappropriate but ultimately harmless joke and he _growls_.

It’s a very good thing that Hydra decided that, in an effort not to waste a well-trained assassin, they would wipe the corrupted Widow. Otherwise, when Natalia woke up in a hospital room with Clint Barton holding her hand, she might have done so with the knowledge that the first person to try to save her was the one who put her there.

In a Hydra base, the Asset’s screams bounce off the walls as they reprogram him before they put him back in cryo. When he is next woken up, he finds that his eyes stray to redheads. He doesn’t think anything of it. He isn’t supposed to think about such things, it could distract from the mission.

It’s 2015 and Natasha sharpens her knives and her head snaps up when Bucky starts humming _Itsy Bitsy Spider_. He doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know why. For him, the memories will come back gradually, because when they wiped him it was strings cut everything fogged over. For her, she can choose whether she wants to find them again or not because hers was a finer thing, little things cut out, because she remembers being the Widow but she doesn’t remember the Soldier who trained her and treated her like a little girl instead of a weapon.

It’s 2014 and the Asset stops at Becca Barnes’s apartment to regroup and sneaks out in the morning and Bucky leaves a note _“sorry Bec need to do something -B”_ and then he goes to burn Hydra to the ground for what they took from him.

It’s 2015 and Steve drags him back and Becca says “ _Gott tsu danken_.” under her breath and tugs both of them into her arms and Bucky is deathly afraid that he’s going to break her.

What actually happens is he sits on her couch and fiddles with the sleeves of the hoodie he stole from Steve and is absolutely not giving back and Steve asks questions he either didn’t get around to asking the other times he’s seen her lately or is asking for Bucky’s benefit, and he learns that his nieces and nephew are doing fine and yes, Becca is a great-grandmother now, isn’t that exciting, and Bucky accidentally falls asleep on his sister’s couch listening to them talk.

It’s 2015 and the base is burning down and Bucky does not have a next target so he just sits in front of it and waits for the people he knows are coming for him.

“Bucky?” Steve’s voice rings through the early morning air.

Bucky runs his fingers back through his too long hair and twists it in his fingers, just enough to hurt, just enough to ground him. “I’m not. I’m not back, not really. It’s not me in here- it _is_ , I mean, but it’s not _just_ me, and. I’m not who I was.” It takes him a few minutes to get through the speech and afterwards he just breathes and breathes and breathes.

Steve settles down next to him. “That’s fine, Buck. I’m not who I was either.”

“You should leave. I couldn’t get all of them, they’ll show up.” Hydra, he means. He cut off most of the heads he knew about, but there’s still the venom to worry about, the troops, and they’re looking for him.

A warm hand settles on the back of his neck, a thick shoulder bumps into his. “Not without you. End of the line, remember? It’s not the end yet.”

Bucky laughs despite himself, and it’s not a happy sound but it’s something. “You stubborn punk.” He says, and stands up.

“Stupid jerk.” Steve shoots back, and fuck, how did they make him forget that _smile_? “Let’s get out of here.”

It’s 1923 and Johnny goddamn Abbott started another fight and Bucky wasn’t expecting it so he’s losing and then this skinny blond blur of a kid shoots in and is on Johnny’s back and he’s got his arm around that stupid thick neck and it’s the edge Bucky needs.

Right before Johnny smashes the kid into the wall behind them Bucky’s brain stutters and everything goes red and then black and the next thing he knows he’s smashed Johnny’s face half to jelly. He backs off as fast as he can but waits for Johnny to sit up before he leaves the alleyway.

Bucky Barnes never wanted to hurt anybody, but he found out early on that he would if he needed to.

“Hey, wait up!” The blond yells, and he stops, breathing hard. The kid catches up, says “Hey, it looked like he cracked a few ribs back there, stand still a second.” and he runs his hands over Bucky’s side for a second and Bucky stands stock still and breathes. It turns out his ribs are probably just bruised.

He breathes and breathes and breathes. “Thanks. I’m Bucky.” He says, simply, because he doesn’t think he can manage any words beyond that.

The kid looks reluctant for a second, obviously remembering their respective outbursts of the week before. “I’m Steve. You wanna go back to my place and have my ma take a look at you? She’s a nurse.”

“Yeah.” Bucky whispers, and shivers. “Yeah, sure.” He slings an arm over Steve’s shoulders, prompting a squawk of protest, and lets him lead the way.

It’s 2015 and Bucky slings an arm over Steve’s shoulders. “Yeah, sure. Let’s get out of here.”


End file.
